Tag: worship

When We Lose Sense of the Promises of God through Jesus Christ

John 16:31
Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

The apostles spent three years with Jesus. Yet when He was ready to leave them, He had to take a lengthy amount of time explaining to them who He was. When He completed His explanation, He posed a question to them, “Do you now believe?”

Are we not just like the apostles? Even though we have spent years in prayer, years in the reading of the Word, years in worship and years in serving God, we manage to lose our sense of who Almighty God really is and the certainty of all the promises that He has given us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Sadly, as if Jesus Christ left the earth and left us to our own wiles, we turn toward the world for answers. We somehow find ourselves overlooking that our all-sufficient Lord provided us with a Wonderful Counselor who stands ready to supply our every need.

Let us be reminded that Jesus promised that His Holy Spirit would be with us and would comfort and guide us. To believe otherwise is to have a complete lack of faith. To believe otherwise is to deny what Jesus said He came to earth to do. “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Let us take courage as Jesus commands us. Let us believe fully in the promises of Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the comfort and guidance that You provide through Your Holy Spirit. We bless the name of Jesus who came to earth so that we may have peace and we may overcome the tribulations of the world. We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will help us to dig deep into our relationship with You. May we dig so deep that we never again turn to the world for counsel without having gone to You first. Help us, Lord, to believe for more than we can imagine is possible through our own efforts. Teach us how to wait on You for Your good and perfect timing in all things. We ask these things in the name of the One that is with us until the end of the age, Jesus Christ.

Training to Hear the Voice of God

John 16:13
But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.

Our Heavenly Father has given all of us Christians the Holy Spirit to teach us the Truth. The Holy Spirit takes us beyond head knowledge of God into a personal relationship with Our Creator. If we submit to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we will not only learn about Our Savior, but we will learn to relish and savor all things that glorify Jesus Christ.

Additionally, we will find that the Holy Spirit goes before us as a guide. He clears our path of obstacles as He opens our understanding. He leads us on the path that we should follow. He makes things plain and clear for us as never before.

In order to profit from this awesome gift of the Holy Spirit, we must train ourselves to listen for God’s voice in our lives. Listening to God is an acquired gift. It is a byproduct of discipline and obedience. We must set aside time to tune into God’s voice. The tuning comes from setting aside time for prayer, reading the Word, and meditation on the Word, as well as, personal praise and worship. When we are obedient in all these things, God will reveal Himself to us in all aspects of our lives.

Let us turn off the world and tune in to the Holy Spirit. Let us learn to listen for the urgings of the Holy Spirit in all matters. Let us be diligent in following the path that the Holy Spirit lays out for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth. We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit will speak to us if we learn to listen for His voice. Help us, Lord, to overcome the voice of our flesh. We pray, Father, that You open our ears so that we can hear You at all times. We ask that Your Holy Spirit help us to overcome the distractions of the world so that Your voice is not drowned out. We beseech You, Father God, that You would strengthen us so that we can be diligent in the small things that we need to do to prepare ourselves to hear Your voice. We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.

Returning to the Fervor of the Early Days of Our Christian Journey

Jeremiah 2:2
Go and shout this message to Jerusalem. This is what the LORD says: “I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.

First, Our Heavenly Father extended His perfect love, forgiveness and pardoning grace to us through His Son, Jesus. Then, as we accepted Our Savior, we were welcomed into an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son. Their love was implanted in us. We returned that love in a very ardent manner of worship. We constantly built on that relationship by fervently following the ordinances given to us. Even through difficulties and discouragements, we clung passionately to our new life in Christ. Then something happened. Somehow our love and our passion waned. But He remembered how we first loved Him. His love for us never changed.

Any parent who has grown kids has fond memories of how their young children delighted in being in their presence. They also remember how the zeal of the children being with them diminished as the children grew older and formed their network of friends. What parent at some point doesn’t say, “how I miss those early years.”

So it is with Our Heavenly Father. He remembers how hungry we were to know Him when we first received His Son as Our Savior. He feels sorrow when He sees our knowledge of Him increasing while our zeal for Him is becoming stale. He is sad when He sees us spending so much time in the world and so little time with Him. He longs for us to return to the energy and enthusiasm that we showed Him when we were first born again in Christ.

Let us return to the joyous and fervent moments in Christ that we enjoyed when we were first born again. Let us turn those memorable moments into the foundation of our ever increasing intimacy with Our Savior. Let us proclaim our joy so that the world can become a witness to our abundant life in Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for pouring out Your perfect love to us so that we are able to return that love to You. We rejoice in knowing that Your throne is always open to us and You eagerly wait for us to come to be in Your presence. We pray, Father, that you will fill us with the zeal of young children who run to their earthly parents to express their love and their joy in being in their presence. May the fire of Your Holy Spirit rekindle our devotion and fervency for You. We pray these things in the name of the One who loved us so much that He died for us, Jesus Christ.

The Ongoing Need to Honor God Through Worship

Genesis 12:8
From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

Through our study of the Word, we find that Abraham was a forerunner in establishing a culture of worship. At the end of each of his journey segments, Abraham built an altar for the Lord from which he worshiped. He built the altars to set up and keep up the worship of God in his family. He maintained the ceremonial part of religion, the offering of sacrifice and he nurtured the practice of seeking his God. He preached concerning the name of the Lord. He taught his family and neighbors the knowledge of the true God.

Abraham showed us that the practice of honoring God through worship is an ongoing need. As he moved from station to station, at times unsettled in the midst of enemies, wherever he pitched his tent, he built an altar to worship Almighty God.

We can learn great lessons from Abraham by applying his worship principles to our own daily lives. If we consider each day a journey, we should conclude each journey by finding a quiet place to worship God. If our daily journey takes us away from our homes, let us not fail to take our worship practices along with us.

As Abraham did, let us establish a place of worship at the end of each journey no matter where we are located. At the end of each day’s journey, let us practice to separate ourselves from all of our daily activities and spend our time in worship with Our Lord.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for placing a desire in our hearts to worship You. We pray that You show us how to come to you each day to worship you in a manner that pleases you. Strengthen us and guide us, Lord, so that we are able to find a quiet place and time each day. We ask that the Holy Spirit help us separate our minds from all of the daily issues of the world so that we may focus on You alone. We pray these things in the name of the author of our faith, Jesus Christ.

God Uses Trials and Tests of Our Faith to Draw Us to Himself

Genesis 22:12
He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

We are going to experience trials in our lives. This is as certain in our lives as death and taxes. Some of the trials will be small and some will be so big that we will nearly faint. In each case, no matter the weightiness, the real test will be the test of our faith.

Who of us could have answered God’s request to sacrifice a child like Abraham did? It was his faith that allowed him to go. Notice what Abraham said to the men who were with him before he headed up the mountain to the place of sacrifice. “I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” Abraham was resting on God’s promise to make him the head of many nations. Abraham knew that this was only possible through his son. Abraham had the faith that in some manner God would provide a way through this test.

Trials and tests are God’s way of drawing us close to Him and teaching us His ways. It is through the trials and tests that our faith is built up so that we can become the person that God has intended for us to be. God may not have created us to be a leader of a nation like Abraham, but He does have a specific plan for our lives. We can only fulfill this plan by putting all of our faith in the One in whose hands we rest.

Let us put all of our faith in the hands of Our Creator. Let us fulfill everything that He has set aside for us through our faithful obedience. Let us rejoice as our bountiful faith releases God’s supernatural plan for our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for each trial that You allow in our lives. We rejoice in knowing that we are resting in Your hands as we go through each of these challenges to our faith. We ask, Lord, that we will have the faith of Abraham. We pray that we will not turn away from any test that you set before us. May our character and our faith be built up in accordance with Your perfect plans for our lives. We ask these things in the name of the One upon Whom our faith is built, the Chief Cornerstone, Jesus Christ.

Sustaining Our Relationship with Almighty God Through Prayer

Mark 9:29
And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Jesus taught us, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” He emphasized that this was the greatest commandment. It is the highest order in the kingdom. Our number one purpose on earth and in heaven is to love God, to praise Him and to bring glory to His name. One of the foremost ways that we can meet the requirements of this commandment is through our prayers.

When we are engaged in work that we consider to be the work of the Lord, we can lose sight of the fact that the work is being done out of the loving relationship that we have with Our Lord. If we let our relationship with God slip, He will withdraw the power that He gives us to do His good work. He is far more interested in our relationship with Him than He is in the result of our work. Our relationship with the Father is built and sustained through our prayer life.

We may be able to manipulate some things in the flesh, but all the things that provide real kingdom value will not endure under the burden of broken fellowship with the Father. Through regular prayer, we build on our relationship with Our Father and we insure that we are empowered to do the greatest works that He has called us to do, even to cast out evil.

Let us take our positions as anointed children of Almighty God. Let us claim our authority as those who have been set apart to do the work of the Father in heaven. Let us release our prayers to overcome all calamities, catastrophes and any hidden dangers that would attempt to come against us and our families.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love in our lives. We thank You for allowing us the privilege of returning our love, our praise and our worship to You through our prayers. We bless the name of Jesus, who dwells within us, for making it possible for us to have victory over evil. Father, we pray that all that we do is born out of the intimacy of our relationship with You. We humbly ask for the grace to stay in constant fellowship with You through our prayers. We beseech You to grant us the power over the evil in our lives and the lives of those that surround us. May it all be for Your glory. We ask all these things in the name of the One who has victory over all evil, Jesus Christ.

When the Lord Reveals Himself to Us

Mark 9:2
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them.

Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain so that they could experience the fullness of His glory. Jesus wanted His disciples to be prepared for the bitter agony that was ahead. He wanted them to have the strength of the promise of the kingdom experience to carry them through the suffering that they would also experience in the future.

Each of us will experience moments in the presence of God. It may be through a vision, a dream, a visitation or perhaps a quiet word whispered in our spirit when we are in prayer or worshiping Him. Each such moment is meant to lift us from our day-to-day lives in the flesh to our eternal lives in the kingdom of God.

Just as the disciples were not allowed to remain in the presence of the glorified Christ, neither are we allowed to stay in the precious moments of Our Lord’s visitation. The Lord simply uses these precious moments to show us the unimaginable promise of our futures in His kingdom and to give us the strength to endure the suffering we will encounter as we prepare to be with Him for all eternity.

Let us treasure those precious moments when the Lord reveals Himself to us. Let us hold on to and learn to leverage the power of His presence even though the experience seems to fade away from us over time.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the treasured moments that You grant us in Your presence. We praise You for those times that You become so real to us. We exalt Your name for the grace that You provide during these intimate exchanges that are beyond our normal earthly expectations. We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will stand by us as we leave the high mountain of Your presence and return to the valley where we struggle in our ways of the flesh. May Our Comforter help us keep the fullness of the joy and the hope of Your presence with us always. May the world know that we are living in the fullness of the presence of Our Savior. We ask all these things in the name of Our Ever Present Savior, Jesus Christ.

Turning Satan’s Tactics Against Him

Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Without question, one of Satan’s greatest skills is his ability to keep us distracted from building our relationship with God by keeping us focused on the busyness of life. One of his greatest lies is planting the seed in our minds that God does not want to hear about everything in our lives. Through the perfect work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can turn both of Satan’s tactics against him.

The first thing that we should do each day in the privacy of the morning is to invite the Holy Spirit to join us throughout the day. Then everything public in our busy lives will be marked by His presence. Everything that comes our way as a challenge or a trial can be handed to Him immediately through brief and constant prayer.

Because through the Holy Spirit, we have already given Jesus the burdens of life throughout the day, in the evening we can shut the door on all the cares of the day. Those cares are no longer there to distract us as we try to pray at night because they are in Jesus’ hands, not ours. Instead of focusing on our cares, we are free to focus on Our God. We can worship Him, we can praise Him and we can soak in His love. We can grow in our relationship with Him according to His good and perfect plan for our lives.

Let us learn to slam the door on the daily trials and distractions that life brings our way. Let us claim the rewards that Our Father in heaven promises us for going to Him in secret. Let us give all of our burdens to Jesus in the morning and thank Him and praise Him in the evening.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Holy Spirit to be the helper that we can call on to make our burdens light. We rejoice in His presence with us throughout the day and night. We pray for the wisdom and the grace to release our cares and concerns to Our Savior throughout the day. With our burdens in Jesus mighty hands, we ask, Lord, that You teach us how to come to You without distraction in the evening. May we learn to spend our private prayer time in the evening growing in our relationship with You and refreshing ourselves for the next day to be spent in the yoke of Our Savior. We ask all these things in the name of the One who lightens our burdens, Jesus Christ.

When We Find Ourselves in a Dry and Weary Place

Psalm 63:1
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Most people who study the Bible find David to be one of the most intriguing characters in all of the Old Testament. It is likely that he is so interesting to most of us because he is a character of such contrast. We learn that He was passionately devoted to God as evidenced by today’s passage. But on the other hand, we find that he was guilty of some of the most grievous sins written of in the entire Bible. We learn that David was a mighty and courageous warrior that won many battles because of His favor with the Lord. But conversely, we find that he was at his weakest when he was fighting his own personal battles in the flesh. David’s emotional highs and lows are well chronicled by David himself in the Book of Psalms. His writings provide us with some of the most heart-warming and inspiring poetry written anywhere in the Bible.

As we struggle through the challenges of daily life, the way God views David offers hope for all of us. Of David, the Lord said, “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.” We can be comforted in knowing that there is nothing that we can do to cause Our Heavenly Father to love us less. His love and forgiveness are perfectly paired and extended to us without end. Our Lord is particularly pleased when, like David, we come to Him with praise even in our darkest hours.

Let us go boldly to the Throne of God, particularly when we find ourselves in a dry or weary place. Let us sing our praises to our precious Lord. Let us be strengthened by knowing that Almighty God delights in seeing us come through our trials in loving obedience to His calling on our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love and forgiveness. We sing Your praises knowing that even when we have fallen that Your love for us never fails. We bless the name of Jesus through Whom we are separated from our sin. We ask that Your Holy Spirit will inspire us to thirst for You in the passionate, intimate way that David did. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will strengthen us to walk in obedience to all that You ask us to do. We long to be called men and women after Your own heart. We ask all these things in the name of the living testimony of the love of God, Jesus Christ.

The Christian’s Security Plan

1 Corinthians 10:12
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

We must stay on guard against the calling of our flesh and the attacks of the enemy. The weakness that we have in the flesh becomes more dangerous to us when we are indulgent in the things of the world. Therefore, we must be certain to check ourselves against our indulgences lest they will rise beyond our control.

A Christian’s security against sin rests in Jesus Christ alone. He provides ample supply of the oil that we need for our lamps to light our way. He gives freely of the strength that we will need to overcome the callings of our flesh. In Christ, we are enclosed in the arms of everlasting love. In Christ we stand on a foundation that will never fail. In Christ, we are kept by an almighty power that cannot be overcome.

Our biggest snare is our confidence that we can stand against our flesh and the enemy alone. We must be sure to maintain the flow of Christ’s strength in our weakness. The “Prince of Preachers”, Charles Spurgeon, offers the following guidance for maintaining our strength in the Lord. “Be much more in prayer. Spend longer time in holy adoration. Read the Scriptures more earnestly and constantly. Watch your lives more carefully. Live nearer to God.”

Let us guard against building up our confidence in our own abilities. Let us anchor our lives in the presence and promises of Jesus Christ. Let us stand on the Rock as our sure foundation.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for promising to perfect Your strength in our weakness. We exalt the name of Jesus who stands beside us and promises never to leave us. We rejoice in the presence of the Holy Spirit who provides us with the strength that we need to overcome every trial and temptation in our lives. We pray, Lord, that You will show us how to draw near to You through our prayers, our worship and our study of Your Holy Word. Help us to be constantly vigilant so that we become bond slaves to Jesus and not to our flesh. May we live in the fullness of Your grace. We ask all these things in the name of the founder and perfecter of our faith, Jesus Christ.